Jerry Jones: ‘Romo very likely to play’

Wade Phillips played it close to the vest this morning, saying the Cowboys needed to evaluate Tony Romo further before deciding if he would play against St. Louis on Sunday with a broken pinkie on his throwing hand.

Jerry Jones took a different approach.

Speaking on his weekly radio show, Jones all but said Romo will get his 33rd consecutive start Sunday.

“It’s very likely that he’ll be ready to play,” Jones said. “The question is, can he handle the pain.”

Jones went on to paint the game as a “must-win affair” for Dallas.

“I know how important the game is and how important it is to us,” Jones said. “Our team, certainly, we’re under siege to a certain degree with our injury situation, so I think we’ll be a better team weeks down the road. But what we can’t do is, with something of our own making, so to speak, or decision-making relative to who’s playing and not playing, we shouldn’t compromise ourselves relative to our won-loss record. We’ve got to get into the playoffs.”

In other words, the Cowboys are a desperate team that needs all hands on deck to beat St. Louis.